Francois Ozon directed film which is more a triumph of style over substance than anything. Chloé (a suitably intense Marine Vacth)
, is a patient of a psychiatrist, Paul (Jeremie Renier). They fall in love
but it seems that Paul has an evil twin brother he is estranged from. Chloé,
in search of answers, seeks him out and this unleashes a whole psychodrama of sexual possession that may or may not be in her mind.
There are moments of tension and sinister atmosphere
but for the most part the film ends up being somewhat unconvincing despite being from a Joyce Carol Oates novel about twins. Jacqueline Bisset has a dual role.
♦♦ +
who loses her husband in a boating accident to find that the company insuring the boat doesn’t really exist and then when she tries to buy a condo in Las Vegas
to remember her husband she is gazumped by some Russian money launderers. The mood is quite bright and focuses more on the crooks
than the victims with Panamanian law firm Mossack and Fonseca heads blithely guiding us through it all in a con boy double act.
Gary Oldman in a very forced German accent and Antonio Banderas look to have a lot of fun doing this but like Streep you realize their figures are more comic cyphers than anything.
Sharon Stone, David Schwimmer and James Cromwell are among the bit players of the small stories that make up the evidence. The overall effect though, however entertaining some bits are is that Soderbergh is going through the motions.
We don’t get a very focused picture, the victims are largely ignored and it is all a bit like watching Donald Trump performing his misdemeanours. Shocking the first time and then extremely dull in repetition. Maybe the material was just too hard to bring to the screen and the actors addressing the screen all the time with the cute scene cards is all a bit underwhelming. Not a complete disaster because of the acting and the fast pace, but far from a definitive work on this topic.
who lives with his gay flatmate. Later we discover Gavin has had tragedy in his recent life and is trying to put his life together. He is an atheist and is trying to make sense of it all without a religion. In the same block of flats are a couple Joe (Patrick Wilson) and Shana (Liv Tyler)
who also have backstories. Joe is deeply religious and Shana passively accepts this as part of her debt to Joe. From the beginning the neighbour’s relationship is fraught and when Joe insinuates that Gavin and his flatmate are sinners being gay, Gavin, who is straight decides to seduce Shana.
The first half of the movie meanders
along quite nicely in this way within the framework of flashbacks as we start the story with Gavin high up on the ledge of a building threatening to jump. In his talk with Hollis (Terrence Howard), the detective on his case trying to talk him down we start to learn the whole story. As a sort of rather unnecessary subplot, Hollis
himself is having an existential crisis having discovered that very morning that he is sterile from birth but somehow father of two children!
which actually works all right but is at odds with the rest of the movie.
Hollis’s story just smacks of Hollywood schmaltz. Photography is good and the mood in an unnamed city but set in a rather seedy Baton Rouge sort of fits. The blind faith of the Christians is rather overwritten
but there is a nice scene dueling with parts of the Bible. Good acting considering the script, especially from Hunnam and Howard.
Who nearly steals the film from under Diane Keaton’s nose.
Set in a retirement village in Georgia, where a bunch of senior women decide to make a geriatric cheerleaders’ group, the emphasis is on amusement and surprise and less on senior rights. In fact, there is more on women’s rights than anything.
The rest is paint by numbers, a sort of simplistic Little Miss Sunshine meets Grumpy Grandad. We have the domineering husband and children, terminal cancer and misfitting youths helping the old girls. Neither the script nor direction did much for me.
Keaton is just OK,
Weaver, a delight and Rhea Perlman and Pam Grier underused. Celia Weston has a nice snobby role as the village Queen and determiner of what goes and what doesn’t. But there is a lot of laziness too: poorly edited scenes and repetitions of the same looks and gestures.
and is one, drinking copious amounts of whisky even on the job. The part seemed overwritten. Vincent Cassell, who replaced a possibly more plausible Gerard Depardieu at the last moment, invests plenty of energy in the role and has some good scenes but can get a bit much.
He is investigating the disappearance of a teenage boy, mirroring a crisis in his own life with his son well on the way to drug dealing. Something is fishy in the case: the mother, who has her hands full with a Downs Syndrome daughter is not opening up much, the husband is a sailor at sea
and the most help seems to come from a neighbour, a school teacher who knew the boy and whose fascination for the case is beyond the norm. Romain Duris
plays against type here and is also perhaps a bit exaggerated. I preferred the performances of Sandrine Kiberlain as the mother and Elodie Bouchez
as the neighbour’s wife.
and there are plenty of false leads
but it is no classic. Simply a competently put together French film.
He realizes that what Sprinsteen sings of in the poverty and gloom of working-class New Jersey is also applicable to Luton and the messages he sings transform his life giving him the inspiration to follow his dreams and stand up for himself, no easy thing given his conservative Pakistani father
and the anti-Paki sentiment in the industrial city he lives in.
Chadra mixes songs and drama and even has some of the key lyrics floating around in the air as Javed dances or sings in his often solitary state.
Cinematically it works and although his transformation into a butterfly, or a future writer and journalist is largely a series of social and family tests passed, it is done with such fun and enthusiasm that you can’t help liking the film
. Some plot turns need a little tolerance, how did he and his friend get to the US when their families have no money, for example? But if you settle back and enjoy the film it gives a stronger and more convincing message than Yesterday.
is very good in the lead and is supported by Nell Williams as his girlfriend and Hayley Atwell
as his inspiring teacher. Kulvinder Ghir
and Meera Ganatra avoid extreme clichés in their roles as his parents.
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